Microsoft is to release a 60GB Xbox 360 this month, if an allegedly leaked email from the software giant is to be believed.
According to a report by Xboxfamily.com, an email was supposedly sent by Microsoft’s Xbox division to retailers GameStop and Blockbuster. It informs them that the software giant plans to introduce an Xbox …

Yep "Pro"

Aww bless - it's so tiny!

Where do they even find HDs so small these days, when you can get 250GB (a tiddler) for £30, 500GB for an extra tenner on top of that, or go the whole hog and get a TB for a ton? Is it that they take the HDs no-one else wants any more, so they get them for free?

Maybe stands for

Pro

Yep, Pro, it's a premium with HDMI.

Pro is used everywhere in equally ridiculous places, especially hardware, IE, I had a radeon 9800 pro, a 'professional' pc graphics card, they certainly exist, but the 9800 wasnt one, obviously, it was primarily for gaming

Will this make my GTAIV 630P?

Next big thing?

How about we just skip the product completely and launch something called iPro! It begins with "i" so it's gonna be as popular as the iPod and it's the Pro version, so it must be better than the standard drivel!

Copying stuff from one HD to the next

Probably quite easy. You'll need a couple of 2.5" USB HD cases to put your drives in temporarily - about 20 quid each, if you shop around, and a Live Linux distro such as Kubuntu or DSL (assuming you're not already running Linux).

The "Probably" is there because I'm assuming that the drives are going to be using a standard filesystem. If they're not, then it could get interesting. But, even then, you could still make a straight backup of the disk using the Linux dd command.

Too Little Too Late

Re: 120GB - bargain

£76? Hardly. You should know by now that US prices and UK ones mysteriously fail to match up on hardware. At the moment, a 120GB drive for the 360 will set you back £129.99 at your friendly neighbourhood GAME store. If the percentage discount applied is the same over here, we'll still be looking at north of £100 for a hard drive that barely counts as 'large' by today's standards.

Which is why I'm stuck with the old 20GB drive on my 360, while I just picked up an upgrade to 250GB for my PS3 for a much more reasonable price of about fifty quid. Which is a shame, because I'd really rather have the drive sizes the other way round.

what is it with consoles these days

Either you go the Microsoft way and have to pay insane prices for a tiny HDD, overly restrictive DRM and a monthy fee just to play online (not even MMO, just normal multiplayer)

Or you go the sony way and have to fork out for an expensive BD drive that play a very limited selection of overpriced discs that give you a sligthy better picture and much worse DRM than standard DVDs.

Then they are wondering why the Wii is a success and punters continue to buy cheap PS2s by the truckload...

@Richie M

I don't know what sort of 360 you got, but I went for the one which allows me to download lots of XBLA titles, and now HD movies and old XBox games onto the hard drive.

Only it doesn't, because after downloading a single XBox game (Psychonauts, which I missed out on the first time round) I haven't got enough space for anything else. And I'm buggered if I'm shelling out £130 for a larger hard drive.

As I said, I have *more* need for HD space on the 360 than I do on the PS3, even with one hefty game install (MGS4) on there.

Can they mess this all up anymore? I bet they can.

I'm a 360 owner and to be honest I'm amazed at how MS when faced with an open goal to start with and did so well initially, havent been able to put a foot right with the 360 for 18 months or more.

Daft decisions with over priced and under-specced hardrives. Lack of any real firmware updates that give value features. No real HD support. No exciting new gaming/control hardware. The lack of updates is a big worry.

You know its over for the 360. MS must now be working round the clock to bring out the next console.

Dissapointing. lets just hope they make it a one box deal so its a standard platform all round. Tired of being held back due to a small percentage not having HD's or some other feature in their Xbox. I'm not blaming those consumers by the way.

@Richie M

Ah, the first person to rise to the bait.

But since you brought it up, I'm quite content with a base install for a game thanks. You continue to load things on a slower optical drive (compared to a HD) if you like. I had to hack my PS2 to do this trick, but I get it gratis on the PS3 and quite happy about it.

Migration kit

You can request a migration kit to easily transfer between drives from M$ ,its free (at least for people who buy elites and already own a premium) and arrives in about 10 days (takes an hour to do). My launch 360 lasted untill last month before RROD and was turned round in a day+ carriage non too shabby tbh. The report with it had boxs for motherboard and dvd drive ticked, odd seeing as I had never once had issues with the drive, essentially I have a new 360 in the old box.

If you know an M$ employee 120gb drives are £40 as they get them at cost... ummmmm profit.

The 360 caches game data on the hdd if it is present, sorry sony fanboi.

There are plenty of nice useful changes to ms firmware in its updates, and minor changes in policy, you can now move the DRM locking in DLC to a different console once a year.

The PS3 still costs too much and who cares if it plays blu-ray, I have no interest in paying a premium for hi-def, when you can get 3 blu-rays for £20 then maybe. I remember the same argument for value when the ps2 was £400 and who the hell uses that as their main dvd player?

@Jerome

To all PS3 fanboys that have hijacked this thread...

...for Gods sake, grow up.

If your console is so great, why not try playing games on it, rather than trying to hijack threads with puerile and juvenile comments?

I have a 360 and have used it heavily for the last 18 months. I've had no technical issues so far, and love playing it. If it RRODs, I'll send it back to Microsoft and get it repaired / replaced. Its not a problem.

I had the opportunity to buy a PS3 about a month ago and was quite close to doing so at one point. I'd actually like to have the 360 and a PS3 side by side, so that I could choose the best games on each system and play them as required.

What stopped me? Well, the more I researched it, the more I realised that the PS3 just didn't represent value for money in my eyes..(at this moment in time). These were the stumbling blocks that I could see:

- the lack of backward compatibility with PS1 / PS2, (OK, I have a PS1 & PS2 and could use them to play my games - however, my living room is not the size of the QEII and my TV only has so many AV inputs. I already have my GC, PS2, Xbox 1 and Xbox 360 hooked up and my wife complains about the space taken up by games consoles as it is...)

- the price (if I bought the console, I'd essentially be paying for not only a games console, but also a Blu-Ray player that I don't want. I don't care whether its the cheapest way to get a Blu-Ray player...I don't want one thanks).

- the catalogue of games, (barring a handful of good titles on PS3 that are platform specific, the rest of the half-decent PS3 games are available on the system I already own. I can't justify spending £350 for a PS3 and a couple of good games)

- the poor online gaming service, (it may be free, which is a good thing, but I've heard its disappointing and that matchmaking with friends tends to be difficult)

- the generally poor way that Sony has treated its European customers over the last few years.

I generally end up buying all of each generations' consoles in the end, so I will probably end up getting a PS3 at some point. However, the way things are looking, it won't be for some time, (and may even be when its price drops just before PS4 is released...whenever that might be).

I guess my point is - whatever console you own, enjoy it - don't spend your time trying to score points against other systems and their owners - whatever they have, it meets their needs and they are obviously happy with it.

@Steve Rowsell

@Steve Roswell

Aren't you just doing the same thing by posting your huge list of 'reasons I don't own a PS3'? I mean, I agree with your eventual point and policy of buying all the consoles where possible, but the bit that goes before it looks like more of the sort of fanboy bile you're arguing against - and some of it's woefully inaccurate (or at best highly subjective) in the first place.

And it's not like the thread had really been hijacked by PS3 fanboys anyway, aside from a couple of comments that can be ignored quite easily.